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TMCNet: 'The Complete Symphonies' CD shows Haydn's talent

[March 14, 2010]

'The Complete Symphonies' CD shows Haydn's talent

Mar 14, 2010 (The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- When the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Gianandrea Noseda, performed Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 56 earlier this month, it gave music lovers a taste of a vast body of wonderful music that is almost completely neglected in the concert hall.


Haydn was blessed with both genius and longevity. Born in 1732, he lived more than three quarters of a century. He's considered the father of the symphony and string quartet genres, for which he composed more than 100 and 80 pieces respectively.

Yet, only a small percentage of those symphonies are encountered with any regularity, although the dozen he wrote in London at the end of his career are considered his best known. Another six written in Paris are equally great. Credit Mariss Jansons for being the exception for programming many of these late symphonies when he was music director here. He even took one, Symphony No. 100 ("Military"), on tour.

It is a situation for which recordings are the ideal solution. Haydn may have been the father of the symphony, but his offspring followed few rules. Know one, or 10, and you've just scratched the surface. He experimented with orchestration. He experimented with form. But his most remarkable gift was finding unexpected turns in the way the music unfolds phrase by phrase.

To celebrate Haydn's music on the 200th anniversary of his death, Sony Classical issued "Haydn: The Complete Symphonies," a new boxed set of all of Haydn's symphonies performed by conductor Dennis Russell Davies and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in Germany. The 37 CDs were recorded in concert at the Mercedes Benz Center in Stuttgart and sponsored by the luxury car manufacturer.

Davies is an American conductor who's made his career in Europe, mainly Germany. His discography up to this point has been heavily weighted toward contemporary music. There are other complete sets of Haydn symphonies, most notably the first by conductor Antal Dorati, but, on balance, Davies' is the most satisfying set yet issued -- including quality of recorded sound.

Davies has the advantage of working with a well-established orchestra, one that cemented its world-class stature a half century ago with recordings led by music director Karl Munchinger. Throughout Davies' Haydn project, recorded over an 11-year period ending in 2009, the orchestra performed with unfailing alertness, cohesion and sonorous variety.

Most admirable of all is that Davies delights in Haydn's originality. Hearing the excellent performance of Symphony No. 56 led by Noseda, listeners couldn't help be aware of Haydn's unpredictability. Sometimes the unexpected is humorous, but, more often, Haydn is amusing himself and his audience with fresh turns of musical thought. People who listen moment to moment, as one would to the unfolding of a play, are most apt to enjoy Haydn.

Haydn was educated according to baroque principles, but developed his classical style as a result of a peculiarity of his career. When Haydn's voice broke as a teenager, he could no longer sing soprano in church music. He free-lanced in Vienna, hated teaching and really lived at night when he composed. He was relieved to be taken as a servant at two households. Most of his life was spent working for the Esterhazy family at their estate in what is now Hungary, where Haydn conducted the orchestra and opera company and was free to compose.

Haydn knew he was lucky, saying, "My prince was satisfied with all my works. I received approval. As head of an orchestra, I could try things out, observe what creates an effect and what weakens it, and thus revise, make additions or cuts, take risks. I was cut off from the world, nobody in my vicinity could upset my self confidence or annoy me, and so I had no choice but to become original." But if fate was kind to Haydn in life, it was cruel posthumously. His much-younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who revered Haydn and his music, possessed transcendent gifts. One of my friends calls Mozart a "once in a species" composer. Haydn's student Ludwig van Beethoven surpassed him, too, and even Mozart in some important ways.

Yet, listening to Haydn's symphonies over the past 11 weeks, I've been struck by how impoverishing the ranking of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven is to our musical lives. The new Davies' set on Sony is a treasurable corrective that ought to provide a lifetime of musical enjoyment.

Mark Kanny is the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's classical music critic and can be reached at 412-320-7877 or via e-mail.

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